Friday Night Fights once again put on an incredible show this past Friday Jan. 15th in NYC. The event was full of great action, upsets, KO’s, and comeback wins! In the main event Russian champion, Alexander Lavrushin was simply too strong for North American fighter of the Year nominee, Chris Romulo. In Rd 2, Lavrushin floored Romulo twice, once with a right hard straight and the second time with a wicked knee to the head. Romulo, who has no ounce of quit in him, rallied back at the end of the fight, putting his Russian challenger on unsteady legs at one point, but in the end Lavrushin had done enough throughout the fight to take home the unanimous decision victory.
In another highlight matchup, UFC veteran and Ultimate Fighter alum, Roli Delgado, proved that one should never take an opponent lightly as he outpointed the young firecracker, Turan “The Tornado” Hasanov, en route to a decision victory. Hasanov was very vocal about his displeasure with having to face Delgado, whom he called “a nobody in Muay Thai“. He wesnt so far as to say that he was not worried at all and thus only trained for one week and did only 5% of the training he usually does for fights. Now, I’m sure Hasanov was only kidding when he made those remarks because no professional fighter would ever take an opponent that lightly (at least I hope not) and with the skills Hasanov has, I doubt he would just choose to not train. However, whatever the issue, Delgado used his height and solid clinch work to keep Hasanov’s heavy hands from connecting. He definitely did his homework on coming up with a plan to deal with Hasanov’s pressure and used technique to pick him apart. Delgado takes home a unanimous decision victory.
Erosa tastes defeat, and it tastes a lot like leather.
In another of the nights pro match ups, Mark “Jaitpetch” Deluca faced off with NYC’s own Kevin Molina. Molina is an Olympic Tae Kwon Do blackbelt with an unorthodox kickboxing style that is a handful for anyone and can be unpredictable. In Rds. 1 and 2, Molina’s style seemed to have Deluca confused and looking for answers. A flash knockdown in Rd. 2 looked to have been Deluca’s wake up call as he rallied back in Rds. 3, 4, and 5 using very tight clinch work to control Molina and deliver vicious knees, finally dropping Molina with a knee to the head in the final round. After the knockdown in Rd. 5 and a strong showing in Rds. 3 thru 5, Mark walked away with the unanimous decision victory.
Congrats to Friday Night Fights and all of the fighters for putting on yet another great show and helping Muay Thai grow on the east coast in the U.S. Hopefully one day soon we will be able to enjoy Full Muay Thai Rules in NYC!
Here are the results of the evening.
Pro Fights:
Alexander Lavrushin def. Chris Romulo by Unanimous Decision
Chris Kwiatkowski def. Mike Erosa by KO. Rd 2
Mark Deluca def. Kevin Molina by Unanimous Decision
Eric Utsch def. Brian Daye by Unanimous Decision
Roli Delgado def. Turan Hasanov by Unanimous Decision
Amateur Fights:
Marcus Fisher def. Kingsley Opaku by Unanimous Decision
Pascal Jean-Michel def. Jessie Cronier by Unanimous Decision
James Besselman def. Dave McDonald by Decision
Ashley Kechego Nichols def. Alexis Asher by Decision
Andrea Messier def. Watt Sriboonmuang by Decision
Rebecca Hart def. Laurie Cahill by Decision
Steven Mandalfo def. Alejandro Ramirez by TKO in Rd. 2
Special thanks to John Wolcott of The Muay Thai Preservation Project for the results.
